Coalition says ‘hope’ of progress on hate speech laws
The government is in conversation with the Coalition to negotiate on its hate speech laws that would (in their current form) give a home affairs minister more grounds to deny or cancel a visa if the person has engaged in hate, vilification or extremist conduct, and create a new “hate groups” listing.
Speaking on Sky News, the shadow home affairs minister, Jonathon Duniam, hints that those conversations might be getting somewhere (after Sussan Ley last week called the laws “pretty unsalvageable”).
Duniam says it’s good that the government abandoned racial vilification provisions in the legislation. Kieran Gilbert asks: will we see progress? Duniam:
Well, that’s the hope. I mean, the process has been shambolic from day one. What we’re doing now should have happened right at the beginning. This is a national response requiring unity, requiring everyone to be on the same page in order to in a uniform, united way …
It is excellent that the racial vilification provisions were kicked out … We are working through, and the government and opposition are working together to try and get the best outcome possible.
Gilbert pushes Duniam on why the Coalition pushed back against the anti-vilification provisions when it was something the antisemitism envoy called for in her report. Duniam says:
The government brought it in, they should consider bringing it back and indeed go through a proper process. These are something that can’t be dealt within a week and amended on the fly within a seven-day period.
Key events
Joe Hinchliffe
Crime scene set up after Canadian woman found dead on K’gari in Queensland
A crime scene has been established on a popular tourist island off the Queensland coast after a 19-year-old woman was found dead Monday morning.
The national broadcaster reports that the young woman found dead on the beach north of the Maheno shipwreck on K’gari (Fraser Island) was a Canadian citizen.
A Queensland Police Service spokesperson said officers were called to the beach at about 6.35am but that “initial information indicate that the woman may have gone for a swim around 5am”.
A crime scene has been established, with investigations ongoing into the circumstance.
Police are appealing for witnesses.
K’gari, the largest sand island on Earth, is a World Heritage Area whose name means “paradise” in the Butchulla language of its traditional owners, and is an important refuge for dingoes (wongari).
Spender supports anti-vilification laws and says social cohesion must be protected
Allegra Spender says the government should move ahead with anti-vilification laws – that she has been supporting for more than 18 months – as Labor moves closer towards passing its hate speech and gun control bills.
The independent MP had moved an anti-vilification amendment in late 2024 when the government passed its previous hate crimes legislation, but it wasn’t supported by Labor or the opposition.
Spender wants to see anti-vilification laws protect the Jewish community, but also other protected groups including the LGBTQI+ community. Speaking to Sky News a little earlier, Spender said the parliament must do more to protect Jewish Australians. She also said Australia’s social cohesion must be protected:
That has to be our north star, that the Jewish community are not behind bars. They are not behind security fences. It is going to be hard to do that, but we absolutely need to have that as our north star, because then we know that we’re protecting the Jewish community and to protect the Jewish community, then we are protecting the whole Australian community.
We need to call out the violent Islamic extremism that led to Bondi, and we need to call out violent extremism of neo-Nazis and others that we have seen in this country, but we must also make sure that we protect the broader social cohesion.
Parents of youngest Bondi shooting victim say they would like footbridge painted yellow in her honour
Penry Buckley
The parents of 10-year-old Matilda, the youngest person killed in the Bondi massacre, have said they would like the footbridge used by the alleged gunmen to be saved and painted yellow in honour of the sundress their daughter wore on her final day.
In a sit-down interview with the ABC, their first since the terror attack, Matilda’s parents, Valentyna Poltavchenko and Michael Britvan, have warned against rushing new legislation through parliament in response to the attack, and thanked the woman who saved their younger daughter.
The future of the heritage-listed pedestrian footbridge has been placed on hold after a Waverley council meeting heard it was “really upsetting” that the matter had ignited such fierce public debate. The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has called for it to be torn down to prevent it from becoming a “ghoulish reminder” of the attack.
Matilda’s parents have suggested painting the bridge yellow and installing a plaque to commemorate the 15 victims of the attack, the ABC reported. Matilda’s mother said she did not want to see the bridge demolished.
Read the full story here:
Chalmers thanks Bondi survivors who came to Canberra to share their stories
The condolence motions are continuing in the House and the Senate today. In the House, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, spoke a little earlier.
He said Australian Jews are part of the Australian story and thanked the survivors of Bondi who have come to parliament today for sharing their stories with him.
The victims at Bondi came from all walks of life: rabbis, devoted volunteers, sports lovers and IT analysts, a retired police detective, a Holocaust survivor, all bound by the simple act of enjoying life and observing faith under a summer sky and their lives were cut short.
We say to everyone affected by this horror, and to every Jewish Australian, you have the right to walk the beach, the promenade, in the park in safety, to be proud of your origins and your heritage, to celebrate your faith in public.
Where are the government’s hate speech laws at?
Over the weekend, the prime minister announced he would split the omnibus hate speech bill, and abandon anti-vilification measures within it – because it did not have the support of the Coalition or the Greens.
Since that point, the Greens have said that they would support one of the bills that deals with gun laws. That bill will set up a new gun buyback scheme, and tighten the importation of a range of firearms including guns with belt-fed ammunition and magazines of more than 30 rounds, and it ends the use of open-ended import permits.
It will also increase background checks for current and prospective gun owners, and will allow for more information sharing between states, territories, the commonwealth and security agencies.
So what about the other bill?
The government is now negotiating with the Coalition to try to pass the other legislation, which will deal with visa restrictions and a new hate group listing.
That one will increase the grounds that the home affairs minister can use to cancel or reject a visa if they believe an individual has engaged in hate, vilification or extremist conduct. These grounds would sit within the already existing character test.
The new “hate group” listing would criminalise an individual for being a member, recruiting, training or providing any support to the hate group.
You can listen to my excellent colleagues Tom McIlroy and Reged Ahmad talking about how the negotiations are taking place here:
Stephanie Convery
Rowland says parliament must emulate display of solidarity
The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, says the country must respond to the Bondi attacks “with strength, not partisanship.”
Speaking to today’s condolence motion in parliament, Rowland says the “collective unity” shown of people “from all walks of life” in the days since the attacks was “nothing short of extraordinary”.
Rowland, who is MP for Greenway in Sydney’s west, said:
It was particularly heartening to see the display of solidarity and outpouring of support from so many different religious and cultural leaders in north-west Sydney and, I’m sure, right around Australia. It’s this demonstration of the strength and solidarity that we must also emulate across this parliament.
Tony Burke says terrorists ‘don’t speak for us’
Stephanie Convery
Back to Canberra, where Tony Burke, Minister for Home Affairs, opened his condolence motion with an anecdote about Ahmed al-Ahmed, who he says was at Bondi’s Hanukkah celebration because he had been looking for a coffee and was invited into the event by a rabbi.
Burke said:
Nobody is going to tell me that Ahmed Al-Ahmed is of the same religion as the gunman.
He continued:
When I visited him in hospital his explanation of what he did was very much about the hand of God, a story you could have heard from somebody of any faith. And I just think it’s important as we work through the horror, and the hatred and the evil, the unspeakable evil of those gunmen, we need to not lose what’s best about Australia and we don’t assign it on the way through to the wrong people.
Burke said he wishes the government was “going harder” on hate speech than they are in the legislation being put forward tomorrow.
In this moment Australia has a chance to respond more loudly than the evil of the terrorists and to simply say they don’t speak for us. Our voice is: you are welcome here forever, we will make it safe.
Pipe bomb suspect appears in court
A man accused of stealing items to make explosive pipe bombs that were found in Canberra will remain behind bars after police raided his home.
Damien Paul O’Brien was arrested and charged with four offences on Sunday after police discovered almost a dozen small, silver pipe bombs on a one-kilometre stretch of footpath in suburban Belconnen last week, reports AAP.
The 41-year-old entered the ACT magistrates court on crutches for the first mention of his matter on Monday, with no application for bail made.
Eleven detonated pipe bombs were found around Lake Ginninderra between Joynton Smith Drive and Ginninderra Drive in Belconnen last week.
Police will allege O’Brien stole $127 worth of galvanised pipes and bought 22 cap ends from Bunnings in Belconnen to create the explosives.
Read more here:
Andrew Messenger
Queensland premier says likely that more than 100,000 livestock lost to floods
More than 100,000 livestock have been lost to floods in north Queensland, according to premier, David Crisafulli.
The premier and the state’s agriculture minister, Tony Perrett, visited Julia Creek yesterday.
“I can update you today that we’ve now received 230 disaster impact surveys, and that has revealed 68,700 stock losses. There will be more to come,” Crisafulli said. He added there will not be a final estimate until people could return to their properties once the water resides:
I believe the figure is going to go well north of 100,000 and we’re going to see that continue to rise, and with that will come a massive impact. It’s not just the impact on the primary producer, both mentally and economically.
It’s also the town. Many of these smaller communities are underpinned by the primary production.
Bureau of Meteorology warnings are still active across north Queensland, including as far west as the Diamantina River. As of Sunday, power had been returned to all but 1,000 of 11,000 homes that had lost it, Crisafulli said.
Advocates call for gun control legislation to pass
On the lawns of Parliament House, gun control advocates are calling for the government’s reforms to be passed.
Stephen Bendle, an adviser at the Alannah and Madeleine Foundation, says there should be bipartisan support of greater gun control.
We understand that there’s nothing in the bill … that restrict[s] the legal use of firearms for sporting shooters, other shooters, and anyone – primary producers, for example.
There’s a lot of pushback going on at the moment, but all of the legal firearm owners who we have always said in the vast majority are good, legal people, can still pursue their hobby or their job.
This legislation will set the foundations for a gun buyback [for] prohibited and unwanted weapons. It will help strengthen background checks. It will help share intelligence amongst jurisdictions and federal bodies such as Asio.
The Greens have agreed to pass the government’s gun reforms, which have now been split from the rest of the hate speech bill. Labor is still negotiating with the Coalition to pass the second bill.
Burns: ‘Dehumanisation leads to exactly what happened in Bondi’
Josh Burns, a Labor MP who is also Jewish, also stands up, and talks about the night of 14 December as the shooting began.
He said his daughter was about to go to the same Hanukkah in the park festival in Melbourne.
As he speaks, his baby daughter, who was just born at the end of December, coos. She’s with Burns’ partner and Victorian MP Georgie Purcell.
Burns says he is proud of his Jewish community.
We must not dehumanise each other because dehumanisation leads to exactly what happened in Bondi. Not every act of hate ends in violence, but every act of violence begins with hate …
To every single Australian who has lit a candle, who has checked in on a Jewish community member, a friend, a colleague. I say thank you because how a country responds matters. To all of the victims and to my community, this is our home. This is our country.
We have some more pictures out of the chamber, where MPs are speaking on the condolence motion after the Bondi terror attack.
Leeser claims antisemitism ‘festering’ in the ‘cultural left’
Julian Leeser, a Jewish MP and the shadow minister for education, says Bondi represents “a moment of choice” for Australia to tackle antisemitism. He blames violent neo-Nazi groups, “radical Islamists”, and the “cultural left” – where he claims antisemitism is festering.
He says:
Today is not about day-to-day politics. It’s about the type of country we want and the type of people we are. The sad reality is that if we do not change – then Bondi will not have changed anything.
Bondi represents a moment of choice. Will we stay in the political cul-de-sac that we have been in for over 800 days, or will we tackle the sources and causes of antisemitism in this country?
Leeser says it would be “naive” to think antisemitism could be tackled over two sitting days of parliament, and implores the chamber to deal with antisemitism “every day this parliament sits until we get the job done.”
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Greens leader Larissa Waters: ‘We cannot ignore that fear and hate have been allowed to fester in our communities’
A condolence motion marking the Bondi massacre is also being debated in the Senate this morning.
In her speech, the Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said the “reprehensible act of antisemitic violence” committed on 14 December was “not who we are”.
Waters said:
Australia is a multicultural nation that is stronger because of our diversity not in spite of it. No one in Australia should fear practicing their religion or culture.
Every Australian should have the right to live, work, worship, learn in peace and in safety.
We cannot ignore that fear and hate have been allowed to fester in our communities and to spill over into tragedy.
Dreyfus: response to Bondi ‘must extend to what we choose to defend and how we defend it’
After Littleproud is Mark Dreyfus, a Jewish MP and the former attorney general,, who speaks the name of the 15 killed.
Dreyfus says the country and government’s response should not be confined to grief, but it “must extend to what we choose to defend and how we defend it.” He becomes emotional as he talks about those who are left behind after the tragedy.
For every person murdered their families and friends left behind. A home left quieter, clothes still hanging in wardrobes, photos on walls that will never be updated, children asking when someone is coming home. A seat left empty at the table, a last no longer heard, belonging to one more word, one moment, one more chance to say what was left unanswered, the pain of that absence does not pass quickly. They were parents, children, neighbours and friends.
Dreyfus ends with a Hebrew prayer.
